Cosmology

Cosmology

Many, perhaps all, early cosmologies or descriptions of the structure of the world were anthropocentric (focused on the role and fate of human beings) and they envisioned a universe subject to whims of gods. As such, cosmology and religion were closely intertwined.

From the ancient Greeks through the Middle Ages, over some two millennia, the geocentric cosmology or worldview of Aristotle (384–322 b.c.e.) dominated much of the Western intellectual world. Circular and unalterable heavens rotated around the Earth, which was motionless in the center of the one and only world. Created during roughly the same period and in the same regions of the world, Aristotelian philosophy and Biblical accounts of cosmology and cosmogony are, not surprisingly, congruent in some respects. Aristotle's teleological explanations assumed that the world was fulfilling a purpose formed by a superhuman mind; Christian philosophy also is inherently meaningful and purposive.

During the Middle Ages, Aristotelian cosmology was subordinated to religious concerns. In the sixteenth century Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) displaced the Earth, though not the solar system, from the center of the universe, and increasingly from the center of God's attention as well. In the seventeenth century Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) destroyed Aristotelian cosmology. The subsequent mechanical cosmology of Isaac Newton (1642–1727), though initially requiring God's intervention to keep the planets circling the sun, eventually replaced God completely with the universal law of gravity.

Early in the twentieth century, the American astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885–1972) showed that the solar system is not at the center of our galaxy, but off to the side, and that our galaxy is many times larger than previously contemplated. A few years later, Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) showed that our galaxy is but one of many island universes, and that the acentric universe is expanding. Each new cosmological discovery displaced humankind farther from the center of the universe and seemed to render humans less significant in an increasingly immense universe.

A contemporary resurgence of dialogue between scientific cosmology and religious thought late in the twentieth century involved yet another version of the traditional design argument for God. The Anthropic Principle noted that values of the fundamental constants of nature (the speed of light, Planck's constant, etc.) and the fundamental physical laws are "fine-tuned" to precisely what is needed for the evolution of life. As with earlier cosmologically based arguments for the existence of God, the Anthropic Principle has proven highly vulnerable to theory-change in science. The inflationary Big Bang cosmological model now explains much fine-tuning without recourse to God.

The history of the relationship between cosmology and religion, particularly in Western thought, has been enlivened by changes in cosmological understanding and beliefs. As the Earth has been increasingly displaced from the center of the universe and observed phenomena have been increasingly brought under the rule of natural physical laws, humankind's relationship with and understanding of God has required revisions.

See also Anthropic Principle; Biblical Cosmology; Big Bang Theory; Big Crunch Theory; Feminist Cosmology; Galileo Galilei; Geocentrism

Bibliograpy

danielson, dennis richard. the book of the cosmos: imagining the universe from heraclitus to hawking. cambridge, mass.: perseus, 2000.

gribbin, john. companion to the cosmos. london: weidenfeld & nicolson, 1996.

hetherington, norriss s. encyclopedia of cosmology: historical, philosophical, and scientific foundations of modern cosmology. new york and london: garland, 1993

north, john. the norton history of astronomy and cosmology. new york and london: norton, 1995.

norriss hetherington